Early Indian Talkies: Voice, Performance and Aura
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Early Indian Talkies: Voice, Performance and Aura Madhuja Mukherjee This paper studies the ‘coming of sound’ in Indian cinema, in relation to the debates such technical change generated in the Indian context, and the ways in which sound and music were negotiated within popular cinematic forms. In connection with this, I would also like to address the question of a ‘gendered’ voice and performance in early talkies to illustrate how various representations of sound and music were produced through a cultural politics. In my attempt to study the deployment of music in popular cinemas, I examine the subject of classical music (and songs), and its varied articulations in the pre-play back era. I wish to read how the ‘aura’ of performances, which is apparently lost through mechanical reproductions, may be reinstituted through certain kinds of performances within specific contexts. I use a New Theatres Ltd. [1] film, Street Singer (1938), and K.L. Saigal’s enunciations of the ragas in the film, to elucidate my point. I 100% talkies: A historical overview The first Indian talkie Alam Ara , based on a popular stage play, produced by the Imperial Film Company [2] and directed by A. Irani was released on 14th March, 1931 [3]. Irani had seen Hollywood’s 40% Sound film Showboat and decided to bring 100% sound to India. The Madan Theatres [4] narrowly missed the opportunity to make this ‘history’ and followed up Irani’s first film with six more talkies in the same year. Madan’s second film Shirin Farad , based on a Persian love story and featuring Jehan Ara Kajjan, Nissar and 42 songs, was a booming success. Silent cinema in India for all practical purposes was ‘dead’ although 30% or 40% talkies continued to be made until the mid thirties. In 1930 Madans reorganized themselves rapidly. Earlier on, in the late nineteen twenties, J. J. Madan (son of J. F., the Madan chief) visited New York and saw Jazz Singer (1927), and also the new enthusiasm around the singing stars. He also got a hint of the changing production relations and technical conditions in the business. To quote Barnouw and Krishnaswamy (1980, p.65) “J. J. Madan caught the fever”. The Madans imported R.C.A. sound machines, built sound compatible studios and recorded scenes from popular theatre like Alamgir, Shajahan, Iraner Rani and Mrinalini. They were prompt in conducting voice tests in their attempt to re-invent themselves for the sound era. Eminent theatre personalities like Ahindra Chowdhury, Durgadas Bandyopadhyay, the singer K.C. Dey, actresses like Patience Cooper, Violet Cooper, Sita Devi and others, stood before the microphone to pass the test of survival. On 13th March 1931, Madans screened about thirty short films at the Crown Theatre, Calcutta. The Imperial Film Company, Bombay, however, released Alam Ara , the first full-length-sound feature film, on the very next day. In 1932, the Madans did a fairly good business, but in 1933 they produced only two films [5]. The transition from the twenties to the thirties in terms of technical changes and economic and political shifts were marked with rapid disintegration of individual enterprises and the steady growth of big-scale studios. The Madan Theatres had started film production at the beginning of the century. They built Calcutta’s first theatre [6] and dominated the scene for about thirty years. In 1925 and 1926 [7] all Bengali films made were Madans productions, and by 1927, Madans’ distribution chain controlled half of India’s theatres. They owned about one hundred and seventy two theatres and garnered half of the national profits from exhibition. Their exhibition chain extended from Burma to Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Nevertheless, by the nineteen thirties, this massive production–distribution–exhibition company was already losing much of its control. “Cinema was no longer bioscope”, wrote Gouranga Prasad Ghosh (1982, p.155). The era of ‘all talking, all singing, all dancing, all laughing’ films had arrived. It was a moment of change. The cinematic idiom along with the production system rapidly changed to cope with the emergent situation. The emphasis shifted from action to dialogue and from iconic to narrative address. Though the silent era in Bengali films continued technically up to 1934 [8], the ‘coming of sound’ in 1931 presented a challenge to the filmmakers in Bengal. The change in the medium transformed production relations and profit equations [9]. Such changes produced intriguing debates and narratives. Sound engineer Wilford Demming Jr. described the ways in which the technology of sound was received in 1931. He was surprised by the “complete indifference” (Burra, 1981, p.38) with which the microphone was addressed, as some actors continued to perform in their own ways irrespective of the changes in the technical conditions. In fact, the early sound engineers came from diverse backgrounds. While Mukul Bose of New Theatres Ltd., was a research student in Electronics and was trained by Demming, Damle, the sound recordist for Prabhat Film Company had been running a single projector ‘touring cinema’. His experience amounted to being simultaneously the driver (of the equipment van), the mechanic, the operator and the proprietor of the set-up. Though exactly not ‘archaic’, the equipment was cumbersome, unpredictable, and even under ideal state of affairs, not very efficient. The cine-motor generated a lot of noise during the recording, and the microphone would unerringly pick up the motor noise. At times despite the precautions, the recording system would suddenly develop crackling noise during the shoot. By and large, new technologies produced unprecedented production problems. While Madans earlier employed ‘non-Bengali’ actors and technicians, the ‘coming of the sound’ forced many of these personnel to quit. In Calcutta and Bombay the structure of the studios underwent a drastic change. After 1931 large scale, well equipped studios like the New Theatres, Prabhat Film Company and others emerged with a crew of trained technicians, writers, musicians, and actors [10 ] (who had a theatre background). A number of successful actors disappeared because of their inability to handle Hindi and other languages. [11 ] Sound also put an end to the practice of casting men in female roles [12 ], though a reverse tendency (generated by the popularity of songs and music) encouraged the casting of female actors in male roles. [13 ] In most cases popular theatre actors were hired for their abilities to sing and perform. With sound, music acquired a central importance, though experiments with sound varied from complete avoidance of music to elaborate musical arrangements/ orchestrations. By the mid-thirties music was serious business in the industry. Experienced musicians and lyricists were lured away from the professional stage. Many famous classical musicians including composers like RC Boral [14 ] and Timir Baran [15 ] were brought into film production to compose music. Music directors borrowed not only from the tradition of theatre but from classical and folk music as well. While film songs served multiple purposes (including narration and establishment of the mood) the background score was used mostly to highlight a situation. In the early films, the background music was mostly simple metric patterns derived from the set practices of generic and other conventions. However, the film song soon became an autonomous spectacular ‘song and dance’ unit. The use of large orchestra, the mixing of folk, classical, and/or Western musical arrangements and instruments produced an ambiguous notion of ‘film music’ (which the All India Radio refused to broadcast for several years to follow). By the mid–thirties, an actor had to be singer to be in films. The first decade of the talkies was dominated by singing stars like Kanan Devi, K.L.Saigal, Pankaj Mullick and others. Dialogue acquired a special place in Indian film practices [16 ]. Often popular playwrights, novelist, poets [17 ] were called upon to write elaborate dialogues and verses, establishing an early connection between word, image and literature. In Bengal, many filmmakers borrowed from and transformed the plots of popular novels. While this was a practice that was introduced by the Madans, with studios like the New Theatres this emerged as part of a distinct literary tendency [18 ] of Bengali cinema. Before this a ‘regional’ cinema with title cards in vernacular languages did exist, and in small towns and villages a ‘reader’ or ‘narrator’ often translated the titles in local languages. In short, the popularity of narration, speech and dialogue has a long history in the Indian context. Thus the producers tried to attract new audiences with advertisements like ‘hear your Gods and Goddesses talk in your own language’. This was also the period when a ‘dialogue cutting point’ emerged in editing parlance. By the late thirties it was evident that the ‘singing–star’ qualification was not adequate for the performer. Moreover, by then European and American production units were already using more sophisticated apparatus about which our filmmakers became more or less aware. Therefore, it became pertinent to introduce the ‘playback’ system by either importing technologies or by indigenously ‘inventing’ the same. Many of the biographies (including that of director Tapan Sinha [19 ]) include interesting details of their inventions. Arguably, Nitin and Mukul Bose invented the play–back system [20 ] in India while shooting for the film Bhagyachakra/Dhoop Chhaon (1935). By and large the ‘coming of sound’ in India was seen as a ‘positive’ change despite the problems and debates on technologies, cultures and language. Debates on Indian talkies With the ‘coming of sound’ a major part of the film discourse in different languages shifted to problems of dialogue writing, the ‘purity’/authenticity of the language, use of songs, the representation of ‘Indian culture’, the sheer technical quality of the sound film and its know-how, etc.